Legal Advisor to the Prime Minister Gali Baharav-Miara claimed today (Sunday), in response to a petition submitted to the High Court demanding that the Prime Minister be removed from office, due to the beginning of his testimony in the legal files in the coming days - that there is no place to discuss the issue now.
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However, the advisor hinted that if there is a factual change that casts doubt on Netanyahu's ability to serve as prime minister and as a defendant at the same time, this situation could change.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's response to the court argued that the petition should be rejected outright: "This is an extremely serious attempt to drag the judicial system into the political cauldron and make it decide, contrary to the law and contrary to the decision of the elected democratic institutions, whether the Prime Minister can continue to serve in his position.".
Netanyahu claimed that the court has no authority at all to declare a prime minister incompetent: "Incompetent is an objective factual state of affairs, and neither the court nor the Attorney General can declare incompetent and thereby create it. The simple factual question is whether the person in charge can fulfill his or her role or not.".
His lawyers added and wrote in the preliminary response they submitted to the court: "No word games will be able to hide the fact that there is an attempt here to uproot the idea of popular sovereignty.".
Netanyahu also attached to his response to the High Court the letter published two weeks ago by all the leaders of the coalition parties - in which they announced that they oppose declaring Prime Minister Netanyahu incapacitated: "We, the leaders of the coalition parties, reject outright any attempt to declare the Prime Minister incapacitated, even for a very short period of time. Any declaration of incapacitated lacks a legal basis and is therefore invalid. Such a move means a coup for all intents and purposes. At this time, the Prime Minister must continue to lead the security and political campaign. We see this as a national interest. We stand and will stand on the guard of democracy. Only the people, through their elected representatives in the Knesset, will determine who will lead it and who will serve as Prime Minister.".
The letter was signed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri, United Torah Judaism Chairman Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, Finance Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafni, Religious Zionism Chairman Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Otzma Yehudit Chairman Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, State Right Chairman Minister Gideon Saar, and Noam Chairman Deputy Minister Avi Maoz.
